The price of oil rose 2 percent this week and marked five straight weeks of gains.

West Texas Intermediate futures contracts for November delivery finished Friday at $51.67 a barrel, up 11 cents (0.21 percent) on the day and up $1.01 (1.99 percent) for the week. Monday’s close of $52.22 marked the week high, while Thursday’s settlement at $51.56 was the low.

WTI has spent the past eight trading days in the $50s after a layoff of 35 days outside that range. There have been 188 trading days this so far this year.

Futures prices are down slightly for the year, sitting 66 cents (1.26 percent) since Jan. 3. The average price for a barrel of WTI is $49.36. The price has reached as high as $54.45 and as low as $42.53.

Commercial crude oil inventories were down by 1.8 million barrels this week, according to the Energy Information Administration’s weekly report released Wednesday. In total, the U.S. had 1.146 billion barrels of crude stockpiled, 471 million barrels of which were commercial crude. There was an 800,000 barrel draw down from the Strategic Oil Reserve.

Total motor gasoline inventories rose by 1.1 million barrels to 217.3 million barrels. Distillates dropped by 800,000 barrels to 138 million barrels.

Domestic crude production rose slightly. At 9.547 million barrels per day, production rose by 37,000 barrels per day.

Imports rose by 59,000 barrels per day to 7.427 million barrels per day. Exports rose by 563,000 barrels per day to 1.491 million barrels per day.

Plains Marketing posted prices also were up this week. The Reporter-Telegram tracks WTI “all other areas” and West Texas sour. Both crude grades rose by $1. On Friday, WTI posted fetched $48.25 a barrel, up 25 cents (0.52 percent) on the day. Sour was also up a quarter (0.55 percent) at $45.35 a barrel.

The spread between the crude grades was $2.90, which has held for the past 20 trading days. The spread between WTI futures and WTI posted is $3.42.

WTI posted has been priced as high as $50.75 and as low as 39. It has an average price of $45.84 and is down 50 cents (1.03 percent) this year. Sour, on the other hand, is up this year. The price is $2.15 (4.98 percent) above the 2017 opener. Sour’s average price is $42. It has a year high of $46.20 and a low of $36.60.

In other futures trading Friday, December contracts were up 8 cents to $51.95, January was up a nickel to $52.14 and February rose 2 cents to $52.22. There aren’t any contracts at $55 or above.